Bug 575738

Summary:	[RFE] Tool to Merge Windows Registry Entries
Product:	[Community] Virtualization Tools	Reporter:	Marko Myllynen <myllynen>
Component:	libguestfs	Assignee:	Richard W.M. Jones <rjones>
Status:	CLOSED UPSTREAM	QA Contact:
Severity:	medium	Docs Contact:
Priority:	low
Version:	unspecified	CC:	mbooth, virt-maint
Target Milestone:	---
Target Release:	---
Hardware:	All
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Fixed In Version:		Doc Type:	Bug Fix
Doc Text:		Story Points:	---
Clone Of:		Environment:
Last Closed:	2010-03-30 15:28:34 UTC	Type:	---
Regression:	---	Mount Type:	---
Documentation:	---	CRM:
Verified Versions:		Category:	---
oVirt Team:	---	RHEL 7.3 requirements from Atomic Host:
Cloudforms Team:	---	Target Upstream Version:
Embargoed:

Description Marko Myllynen 2010-03-22 09:56:35 UTC

Description of problem:
When migrating a Windows guest from VMware to Xen or KVM one can convert the disk image easily with vmware-vdiskmanager/qemu-img if needed. However, when booting the guest it may give BSOD due to changed system disk as described in Microsoft KB article

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314082/

To overcome this issue one needs to merge a set of registry entries provided in the KB article into the guest's registry.

Currently there is no mechanism with libguestfs/hivex/hivexsh to easily merge Windows registry entries from a .reg file. Having such a tool would be beneficial and make, for example, migrations easier.

Comment 1 Richard W.M. Jones 2010-03-22 10:02:48 UTC

It turns out we need a similar capability for virt-v2v as well.

Along the same lines:
virt-win-reg needs to be rewritten so it doesn't suck so much
and so it is capable of writing registry entries.  Probably it would
be the front end to merging, with a corresponding lower-level
tool in hivex.

Comment 2 Richard W.M. Jones 2010-03-25 20:27:08 UTC

First part (of three) posted for review upstream:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2010-March/msg00126.html

Comment 3 Richard W.M. Jones 2010-03-26 14:26:53 UTC

Parts 1 and 2 (out of 3) posted for review upstream:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2010-March/msg00129.html

Comment 4 Richard W.M. Jones 2010-03-29 13:41:18 UTC

Complete 3 part patch posted for review upstream:
https://www.redhat.com/archives/libguestfs/2010-March/msg00134.html

This could do with some testing please.

Comment 5 Richard W.M. Jones 2010-03-29 15:43:32 UTC

Marko:

There are scratch builds of hivex and libguestfs for EPEL 5
here for a few days:

http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=2081836
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=2081716

You need to install the following subpackages as a minimum:

hivex-1.2.1-0.el5.mm2
hivex-devel-1.2.1-0.el5.mm2
libguestfs-1.0.89-0.el5.mm1
libguestfs-devel-1.0.89-0.el5.mm1
libguestfs-tools-1.0.89-0.el5.mm1
perl-hivex-1.2.1-0.el5.mm2
perl-libguestfs-1.0.89-0.el5.mm1

For some ideas about how to use it and what to test, read
the virt-win-reg manpage (after installation, NOT the online
one which is now out of date), the Win::Hivex::Regedit
manpage, and
http://rwmj.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/edit-the-windows-registry-in-your-vms-from-the-host/

Make sure you've got backups of your Windows VMs.

virt-win-reg --merge must NOT be done on live VMs.

If you get problems, see the BUGS section of the virt-win-reg
manpage for how/what to report.

Comment 6 Richard W.M. Jones 2010-03-29 22:03:43 UTC

Updated ...  (libguestfs is the same, hivex is updated with several
important fixes):

http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=2082810
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=2081716

Comment 7 Richard W.M. Jones 2010-03-30 09:02:15 UTC

Updated ...

http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=2082810
http://koji.fedoraproject.org/koji/taskinfo?taskID=2083658

Comment 8 Richard W.M. Jones 2010-03-30 15:28:34 UTC

All the changes required for this have been pushed upstream.
Marko tested this.  I'm therefore closing this bug.